Dresden Files - Changes

[kriadydragon]

Finally reading it! Some thoughts...

Okay, so I'm only two chapters in but, well, it's Dresden Files and it doesn't hesitate to eat your brain;) It was hard, at first. We all have tropes we're not fans of and one of my least favorites is when the hero suddenly has a kid they didn't know about. This trope seriously makes me cringe, and thank goodness I knew about it going in or I might have tossed the book across the room. Why does it bother me so much? I suppose because I have yet to see it end well. My experience with it in other books and shows has always been the kid growing up (unnaturally fast) while being brainwashed with the desire to kill their parent. Or, the kid is killed, thus sending our hero down a darkened abyss of sorrow and misery and guilt. Or, the story becomes all about finding the kid, rescuing them - kid, kid, kid.

So I'm really hoping this is just some elaborate set up. In fact, my gut feeling is that it is an elaborate set up. Granted, I could be wrong, but I had kind of seen the surprise!kid trope coming even though I was in firm denial of it, so I'm crossing my fingers (and apologies to anyone who likes this trope. Like I said, we all have tropes we're not fans of and this one happens to be mine).

But I loved Harry's reaction, because it was just so real. Writing reactions and emotions is tough because there's always this part of you that wants to side with logic. We're not the ones going through what the characters are going through. We're detached, sitting on the sidelines, so it's easy for us to side with logic. But the thing about logic is it shrinks back in horror in the face of overwhelming emotion. I kind of get why Susan did what she did, but the scene was written in a way that made it easy to sympathize with Harry, to see where he was coming from. He just got a major bomb of epic proportions dropped on him, and he's having a hard enough time just trying not to blow up and do some major damage.

I wish I could handle writing emotions like that, to help the reader realize that thinking clearly and seeing reason - if there is reason to see - just doesn't happen when the crap hits the fan. It's why I get frustrated with stories where a character is badgered and lectured into seeing reason, because life just isn't like that. You try to force someone to be reasonable when they're going through emotional hell, and you're just going to make that hell worse. If they do eventually see reason, it's not going to be for some time (and don't get me started on characters who go through emotional hell, only for the other characters to gang up on him/her just because he/she was being a little snippy).

Wow, much thinky-thoughts for only being two chapters in.

Comments

Brain Eating Awesomeness

[kajahryujin.livejournal.com]

I agree, long lost sons and daughters sometimes seem as though the author is trying to pull off a last minute plot twist. Jim Butcher seems to know how to work with it in his novels quite well though. I also like his writing due to the fact that I can emotional connect with his characters. They react in a visceral wonderful way that makes me feel bad when something awful happens to them. Have you ever tried his Codex Alera series? Just as awesome as the Dresden Files, but with Roman Empire era setting and more epic fantasy style.

Re: Brain Eating Awesomeness

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

"Jim Butcher seems to know how to work with it in his novels quite well though."

Yes, which is why I trust Jim Butcher to do something interesting with this. Personally, I would love for this to be a set up just because I think that would be quite an original take on the trope. But if that turns out not to be the case, I still trust him not to settle for the cliche.

I tried reading the Alera series but couldn't really get into them.

Re: Brain Eating Awesomeness

[elrhiarhodan]

I was going to ask you what you thought of Alera...I liked it up to a point. The last two were not my favorites, but the first three were awesome.